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One defining characteristic of Homo sapiens is the production and use of personal ornamentation. Evidence from Africa and western Eurasia has dominated discussion, but a growing number of finds directs attention towards Island Southeast Asia. In this article, the authors report on an assemblage of Nautilus shell beads from the Indonesian cave site of Makpan, Alor Island. The highly standardised forms, mostly with two perforations, and evidence of use wear, indicate that these beads were utilised as appliques. Dating to the terminal Pleistocene, these beads appear to form part of a wider tradition also attested on Timor and Kisar, suggesting an early inter-island network across southern Wallacea. Keywords: Island Southeast Asia, late Pleistocene, marine shell, personal ornamentation, use wear analysis, ochre, Introduction Evidence for ornamentation worn on the body extends deep into the human past. In Island Southeast Asia, the discovery of personal ornamentation as well as parietal art, has transformed [...]

Found only in a restricted area of north-west Australia, the Australian boab (Adansonia gregorit) is recognisable by its massive, bottle-shaped trunk, and is an economically important species for Indigenous Australians, with the pith, seeds and young roots all eaten. Many of these trees are also culturally significant and are sometimes carved with images and symbols. The authors discuss the history of research into carved boabs in Australia, and present a recent survey to locate and record these trees in the remote Tanami Desert. Their results provide insight into the archaeological and anthropological significance of dendroglyphs in this region and add to a growing corpus of information on culturally modified trees globally. Keywords: Australia, Kimberley, trees, dendroglyphs, visual culture, Indigenous Dreaming tracks, Introduction Carved trees, known as dendroglyphs or arborglyphs, are an intriguing but largely understudied form of cultural heritage in Australia. They represent an important expression of Aboriginal visual cultural practice [...]

The arrival of the dog (Canis familiaris) in Australasia is believed to have had major impacts on the region's ecosystems as well as human society and organisation. Very little is known about the antiquity of the dog in New Guinea due to a paucity of fossil specimens of secure antiquity, particularly in the Highlands. Here, we report the direct dating of a partial dog cranium from Mapala Rockshelter, a subalpine site at ∼4000 m asl in the Sudirman Range. Recovered in 1972 from a bone-rich layer in the cave floor above a basal charcoal date of about 5500 BP, this individual has been considered a possible early example of dog in Australasia. An Accelerator Mass Spectrometry date from maxillary bone shows that the Mapala dog is far more recent (491 ± 19 BP, or 536–501 cal BP). Our finding is of relevance to understanding the antiquity of dog in the Highlands of New Guinea, and also for the wild dog populations which exist across this large area. The date is also the first for the site's mammal-rich fossiliferous sedimentary unit, providing a chronological context for Late Holocene turnover in the composition of the local fauna. The most notable of these changes include the regional extinction of two Thylogale spp. and the invasion of Pseudochirops cupreus into subalpine western New Guinea environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aboriginal peoples have managed Australian landscapes for millennia; however, deep-time paleoecological evidence of the nature of landscape modification remains rare. The Fleurieu Group of islands in Bass Strait was one of the areas actively used by Aboriginal people in lutruwita (Tasmania), until forced dispossession of their lands due to European colonization occurred over 230 years ago, with subsequent land use including leaseholder pastoralism and nature conservation. There are emerging opportunities for greater input from Aboriginal people into land management of the islands now and into the future. This investigation of the long-term human–island ecosystem interactions in the area is aimed at providing a greater understanding of the impact of land-use changes on biodiversity and ecosystem change through time. Holocene multi-proxy paleoecological records from the islands show periods of low to high intensity land use, with the highest intensity periods occurring around 8500–6500 BP and the last 2000 years. Aboriginal land use in the past ∼2000 BP promoted a complex mosaic biodiverse landscape and provides a baseline for current and future land management on the islands and elsewhere in Tasmania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dingoes are culturally and ecologically important free-living canids whose ancestors arrived in Australia over 3,000 B.P., likely transported by seafaring people. However, the early history of dingoes in Australia--including the number of founding populations and their routes of introduction--remains uncertain. This uncertainty arises partly from the complex and poorly understood relationship between modern dingoes and New Guinea singing dogs, and suspicions that post-Colonial hybridization has introduced recent domestic dog ancestry into the genomes of many wild dingo populations. In this study, we analyzed genome-wide data from nine ancient dingo specimens ranging in age from 400 to 2,746 y old, predating the introduction of domestic dogs to Australia by European colonists. We uncovered evidence that the continent-wide population structure observed in modern dingo populations had already emerged several thousand years ago. We also detected excess allele sharing between New Guinea singing dogs and ancient dingoes from coastal New South Wales (NSW) compared to ancient dingoes from southern Australia, irrespective of any post-Colonial hybrid ancestry in the genomes of modern individuals. Our results are consistent with several demographic scenarios, including a scenario where the ancestry of dingoes from the east coast of Australia results from at least two waves of migration from source populations with varying affinities to New Guinea singing dogs. We also contribute to the growing body of evidence that modern dingoes derive little genomic ancestry from post-Colonial hybridization with other domestic dog lineages, instead descending primarily from ancient canids introduced to Sahul thousands of years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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